9 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 16 & 8 Reasons Not To

Wait for Performance Improvements

The iPhone 16 series should come equipped with a new processor, but performance improvements will likely go beyond that.

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple might have support for Wi-Fi 7 which the Wi-Fi Alliance recently announced. 

Kuo's information has been backed up by Haitong International Securities analyst Jeff Pu.

That being said, Pu believes the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will come with support for Wi-Fi 6E which is currently limited to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Pu claims the base iPhone 16 models, presumably called iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, will come with Apple's A18 chip and 8GB of RAM while the higher-end models would come with an A18 Pro processor. He's reiterated this stance in newer notes.

This has been backed up by a report from a user on Weibo who says the lower-end models will come with the first Apple chip specifically designed for the standard models. 

This is an interesting development because it means the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus would skip the company's A17 chip. 

A private user on X/Twitter has released technical information about chips for unreleased Apple products and said information also suggests all four iPhone 16 models will utilize an A18 processor. 

Early iOS 18 code, seen by MacRumors, hints at this being the case.  

Taiwanese publication Economic Daily News says Apple's upcoming A18 and M4 chips will feature an upgraded Neural Engine with more cores. This should improve the devices AI learning capabilities. 

Jeff Pu also says the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will sport Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X75 modem. This should lead to faster, and more efficient, 5G connectivity.

Pu believes the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will keep the Snapdragon X70 modem from Apple's iPhone 15 lineup. 

Qualcomm recently announced it extended its modem license with Apple through March 2027 which means we'll see Qualcomm modems, and not in-house Apple modems, appear on the iPhone 16, iPhone 17, and iPhone 18 at the very least.

On top of all that, we've also heard the iPhone 16's OLED display might be more power efficient thanks to new material Samsung's developing for Apple.

Naver user "yeux1122" claims the iPhone 16 Max could feature the longest-ever battery life on an iPhone.